


nobody else believes

by js71



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Batfamily (DCU), Domestic Batfamily (DCU), Family, Fluff, Gen, Originally Posted on Tumblr, POV Outsider, Protective Batfamily (DCU)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-14
Updated: 2020-09-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 17:54:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26452936
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/js71/pseuds/js71
Summary: Jack never noticed the scars. They run down his son's arms and hands, raised and sunken, skin stretched and healed.
Relationships: Batfamily - Relationship
Comments: 7
Kudos: 250





	nobody else believes

Jack never noticed the scars. They run down his son's arms and hands, raised and sunken, skin stretched and healed. It’s just not something he’s picked up on, at least, until now.

He sees them now, as Tim cuts celery, speaking animatedly to the older man beside him, who’s maybe nineteen, with a streak of white at his forehead and who’s wearing a t-shirt, marks like Tim’s all the way down his arms.

He doesn’t understand why he was invited to this. He doesn’t really know the people here. Just his son, and maybe the blonde girl who’s doing a handstand on the back of the couch, he thinks he’s seen her before. Her shirt rides up, revealing a white rectangle tapped to her stomach, and more scars that make Jack want to vomit.

Tim dumps the greens into the salad bowl, and turns around, towards the African-American teenager who’s leaning against the island, hands in his pockets. Tim absently throws the knife over his shoulder, and the other person at the counter, a red-haired woman, catches it without so much as a glance, starting on the carrots.

Tim begins to speak to the boy, and they both laugh, the boy gesturing wildly and making crazy facial expressions as he tells his story, and Jack just stands across the apartment, watching his son, unable to hear over the other kids. They all have scars. Faces, hands, legs, arms, feet, necks. They don’t hide them, they’re all in plain sight, and it makes him sick.

A red-haired girl, maybe twelve or thirteen, sits on the couch the blonde is balancing on, a controller in her hands, a boy about her age with brown hair and a temporary bat tattoo on his cheek laughing as they race in Mario cart. On the ground, a young Asian girl watches, her own controller limp in her own hands, the character no longer moving, her eyes flickering between each section of the screen, taking it all in.

A blue-and-purple-haired girl, hair cut in a style that is not really appropriate for a young woman sits on the counter beside the African-American boy, leaning on his shoulder with an elbow. A man shorter than the one at the cutting board is sitting at the table with a woman in a wheelchair, both of them grinning as they speak, a young, tanned boy drawing between them.

“Alright, assorted losers!” The cutting-board man calls, and the Mario Cart game is paused, the volume turned off entirely, leaving the space dead silent. Jack could feel his heart thudding in his chest, and for once, he hysterically wondered if anyone else could hear it. “Put the TV away, we’re eating, no phones at the table.”

 _“Jason,”_ the blue-purple haired girl whines, but he points at her with his knife, the tip coming very close to her eye, which seems threatening to Jack, but nobody else seems to think so, not a single one of them moving to get him to put the knife down or to tell him that you can't do that sort of thing to a young woman. Or anyone. “Ugh, I hate you.”

“I don’t hate you,” Jason chides, as Tim picks up the salad and balances it on the Asian girl's head at her silent request, giving her the plate of waffles to carry in one hand, syrup and powdered sugar in the other. “If I hated you, you wouldn’t be here.”

“By that,” the red-haired gamer calls, suddenly appearing beside Jack, and he flinches away, heart skipping more than a few beats. She smirks at him, all cocky and proud. “He means that Harper would be able to say she’s died.”

“Um...”

“Let’s not talk about our deaths day, please and thank you,” the red-haired woman by Jason says, and there are a few grumbles, and Jason starts to say _excuse me, this is a sensitive subject for me,_ but Tim cuts him off with a sharp elbow to the side, smiling to himself.

“We get it, Jason, you died.”

Jason makes a face at Tim, who sticks his tongue out in return, and then everyone is moving towards the table, bringing drinks and plates and food, and Jack finds himself between the gamer who snuck up on him and the woman in the wheelchair. Across from him is Jason, who glares for a split second, before smacking Tim over the back of the head and saying Timbo, stop hogging all the syrup.

It’s buffet-style, kind of. There’s steak and bacon and waffles and instant ramen and eggs and salad and hot dogs and all sorts of random things, and everyone is grabbing and passing things around, not asking for things, speaking about whatever else.

“Tim, you got that report I asked for?”

“Sent it to you an hour ago, should be there.”

“Yeah, aerials are hard, only Golden Boy doesn’t think so, get Steph to teach you--”

“You think I’m good at them?”

“I never said that.”

“Guys, Jason said I’m good at something!”

“Steph, you’re literally good at one thing and that’s being peppy--OW!”

“Punched ‘em.”

“High five!”

“Someone needs to take the Narrows next week, I gotta deal with the Titans.”

“What’d they do this time?”

“What haven’t they done?”

* * *

“You know that this was calculated, right?”

The question comes from Barbara, as the rest of the children, and Kate, and Jason, and everyone, save Jack and the woman in the wheelchair, crowd around the TV, shouting and cheering as races take place.

“What do you mean?”

“Tim is aware that you tried to fire him,” Barbara says, lacing her fingers together, and setting her hands down on the table. “But you have to realize, that’s not your choice.”

Jack opens his mouth to retort, but Barbara doesn’t give him the chance. “I was the first Batgirl, Jack Drake. Dick was the first Robin. Those titles? They’re passed on, until the people who use them find their footing, their real place in the world. And you can fire Robin as much as you like--god knows Bruce did when Stephanie took up the role--but it’s never going to take root.

“Dick gave away Robin, to Jason. And Jason died, which left it to Tim. Tim took a hiatus, in order to figure out what to do next, and Stephanie took it for a spin. Now, Damian is Robin.” Barbara smiles like she knows something Jack does not. And she might; from the conversations he’s heard, Barbara is the one in control. “I gave Batgirl to Cass. Then to Steph. And most recently, Carrie. I have never fired a Batgirl, but I have always let them go. Bruce tends to be rougher around the edges.”

“My son,” Jack begins, fists clenched. “Is not a vigilante.”

“You don’t understand,” Barbara says, her quiet smirk getting on Jack’s nerves. “You’re not in control here, Jack. The moment you were invited here, it was a show of power. This family will never let you be in control again. Tim will never let it happen. And he’s not Robin anymore, not because you fired him.

“But because someone else needed it more. He’s Red Robin. And you can’t take that from him. You can ground him, and threaten him, and go to the police, but nothing will stop him but death and even death won’t do the job. Jason came back, as did Stephanie, and Dick, and Damian and Cass.

“You need to be aware that everyone here considers Tim their brother, or in Kate’s case, her nephew. If you go to the police, you will find every bit of evidence you have moot, and you will find yourself alone on the streets. If you raise a hand against Tim, you will find yourself broken in your living room.”

“Are you threatening me?”

“No,” Barbara says, serenely, visibly knowing exactly what kind of picture she makes, a bespeckled ginger in a wheelchair, somehow just speaking calmly, yet there's enough power in every word that Jack wouldn't doubt that she could kick his ass without any effort whatsoever. “I am simply pointing out what you have not yet seen. This family is protective, Jack Drake. I am protective, and we don’t take kindly to people threatening us. Violence is in our blood. Manipulation is in our hearts. You can never touch him.

“If you try, you’ll wish we killed.”

**Author's Note:**

> I take requests, asks and prompts on my [Tumblr](https://jc71.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> This story is free to read on AO3, and I have never given permission to anyone to post it anywhere else. If you have paid to read this story, then you have been scammed. If so, please inform me of what app or website made you pay, and other relevant details so that I might stop that from happening.


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